Lilly and the Empty House

"Thank you so much for offering to take care of my petpets,
Lilly!" said Lilly's best friend Bluestripes the electric Kougra. Lilly had
always wanted to be painted electric like Bluestripes, but she was just a plain
old blue Kacheek. And besides, her owner didn't have enough Neopoints anyways.
He always spent the Neopoints on scratchcards, even though he had never won
any.

"No problem Bluestripes! It's the least I could
do after you saved my petpet from that Grarrl in Tyrannia." She had almost lost
her favorite thing of all, her Feepit, to that big Grarrl back when they were
exploring in Tyrannia. Boy, was she glad that Bluestripes had been there. It
would have been to scary to even think of what would have happened if he hadn't
been there.

Pretty soon she got to know the petpets better.
She had been worried that once Bluestripes was gone, all of the petpets would
turn on her. But it turns out, they're actually really friendly. They took to
her immediately. She had read them a story, played hide-and-seek, and she had
even taken them to the park to play. She had even managed to break up a fight
for who got the swings first.

"This is so cool!" she thought to herself. "I'm
actually taking care of the petpets without any problems! This is going so smoothly,
that nothing could ever go wrong!" But she was about to be terribly wrong.

Later that night, while babysitting was going
just fine, Lilly heard a noise outside. "What was that?" Lilly said with a slight
hint of fear in her tone. Suddenly, she remembered that on the news today there
had been recent sightings of the Ghost Lupe around Neopia, and people were warned
to be on the lookout for him. She remembered that the Ghost Lupe was spotted
in Tyrannia, The Lost Desert, Faerieland, and Neopia Central. In fact, the Ghost
Lupe had been spotted around the house she now stood in just two days ago!

She found herself grabbing Snakey the Wadjet,
Storm the Cirrus, Tusks the Gruslen, Twisty the Skrewtop, Dinosaur the Stego,
and Horns the Raindorf and quickly diving behind the sofa. She was quivering
with fear and anxiousness as she sat in wait for whatever made that noise. She
was quietly praying for her life, while the petpets were praying for theirs.

The petpets squeezed close together, desperate
for the feeling of safety, while Lilly pressed close against them. They were
terrified, and the silence didn't help.

After what seemed like a lifetime, Lilly finally
emerged from behind the sofa while desperately clutching all the petpets. She
suddenly wished that Bluestripes didn't have so many petpets. Slowly, carefully,
she let the petpets down, and looked around the room to see if anything might
be there. It was empty, but just as she and the petpets were leaving the room
to go to bed, they heard another noise outside.

She looked out the window. When she looked, she
saw…nothing? She was sure she had heard something. Maybe her mind was playing
tricks on her. No, she had to have heard something! Then, she heard it again.
This time it was more like a moaning sound. She looked out of the window again
and saw the same thing. Nothing. She thought silently to herself about getting
her ears checked then headed off to bed.

The next morning she felt silly for being afraid
of a little noise, and actually felt disappointed in herself for being so foolish.
She should have known better. After all, she was over a year old. She was old
enough to be braver than that!

"Well, anyways," she said to herself, "I think
I'll go make some breakfast for everyone." But when she came downstairs, everything
was gone! All the furniture had been stolen.

"Oh no!" she cried. The petpets ran in wondering
what had woken them. When they saw what had been done, she was certain they
were going to faint. She quickly ran outside. She saw a little black shadow
off in the distance. It looked as though it was floating.

"The Pant Devil!" she yelled. At that moment
the black shadow took off in a hurry. She and the petpets took off after it.
She thought of what her best friend would think of her when he came back later
that day. In fact, he was coming home in two hours! She had to hurry!

She ran as fast as she could but the shadow ran
faster. Finally, the shadow stopped. So did her and the petpets. They were just
beginning to approach when they saw what he had been standing by. It was all
of the furniture!

"Hey! Pant Devil! Give me back all of the stuff
you stole or you'll regret it!" she shouted desperately. She knew she had two
poison snowballs, a trumpet of deafening, and a rod of nova in her pockets.
She watched him carefully, wondering what he might do, when suddenly, he hit
her!

She fell to the ground with a thud and the Pant
Devil just kept on punching her with no mercy whatsoever. It was a brutal assault.
Just when she thought this was the end as she began to lose consciousness, a
sudden magical force gave her an enormous amount of energy and she threw the
Pant Devil off of her and threw her snowballs at him.

He dodged them with ease. Next she used her trumpet,
but he dodged that too. Just when he was about to assault her once more, he
stopped cold in his tracks. She quickly got out her rod of nova and created
a nova with its magic, and quickly threw it at the Pant Devil.

It didn't miss. It hit him square on the head,
knocking him out right there and then.

She looked around. She wondered what magical
force had caused her to have so much energy. Then…she saw it… the Ghost Lupe!
He was standing there staring at her as she returned the stare back at him.
She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. She closed her
mouth, and the Ghost Lupe nodded. He slowly disappeared and she silently thanked
him for not only giving her the energy to take the Pant Devil down, but also
for stopping the Pant Devil so that she could hit him with the nova. But most
of all, she thanked him for being kind, and non-violent towards her. After all,
he was the Ghost Lupe. And he was not known for kindness.

Later that day, after the petpets helped Lilly
move all of the furniture back inside, she heard a car pull up in the driveway.
She walked out the door to greet her friend.

"Hi Lilly!" he said.

"Hi Bluestripes!" she replied.

"Did anything happen while I was gone?" he asked.

Something had happened while he was gone. She
was about to tell him but thought better of it. "No," she said. "Nothing happened
at all".

"Wow. It must have really been boring then, huh?"
He said goodbye to her as he went inside to unpack.

Quest of Three: Part FiveDarigan let go of his branch with a sigh of relief,
then looked around and realized that something else in the glade had changed.
"Why," he asked carefully, "are we surrounded by a blackberry hedge?"